Child safety seats are important for many reasons. For one, they restrain the child. It is often important to restrain a child, especially a very young child. By restraining the child, a parent or guardian can perform other tasks, knowing the child will not be getting into something that can be broken or that can hurt the child. The parent can prepare dinner, drive a car or do household tasks while the baby is safely restrained in its seat.
Most child safety seats currently in use have a rigid frame forming the seat and one or more straps that contain the child. Many child safety seats have eyelets, troughs or passages through them to accept an automobile seat belt, thereby helping to prevent the baby from mobilizing should a car accident occur. Often, such child seats are used to protect and restrain an infant when flying in an airplane. Unfortunately, the size and weight of such a child seat makes it quite difficult to carry the child seat, the infant and assorted necessities through an airport terminal.
Present child safety seats function well for their intended purposes, but are often large and difficult to transport as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,293 to Nagasaka. A parent with two very young children would find it almost impossible to carry two of the child safety seats as described, the infants and other necessities through an airport. Even when visiting family and friend, it is very difficult to unbuckle and remove the car seats, then carry them in while also carrying the infant, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,543,722 to Barth, et al., describes one such child restraint system, intended for aircraft use. Although the described child restraint functions for its intended purpose, its size and shape makes it difficult to carry through the airport. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 6,474,732 to Merensky describes another child seat for airplanes. This too is bulky and would prove difficult to carry through an airport. U.S. Pat. No. 6,220,662 to Franco-Vila, et al., describes another such seat, only this seat folds up to improve its portability. Again, the size and weight of such a device would make it difficult to carry through an airport. U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,212 to Muller, et al., describes an infant seat designed to attach to the back of the passenger seat in front of the parent. This to is large, bulky and would be difficult to carry.
Child seats have been designed to attach to aircraft attach points such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,828 to Bennington. Unfortunately, the described device has the child seated on the floor making it difficult to care for and amuse the child. Such a seat has similar inherent carrying difficulties as described above.
A protective device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,224,229 to Smith, but this device too, is bulky and would be difficult to carry along with the child and other items.
What is needed is a child safety seat and restraint system that comfortably holds and restrains the infant while traveling, yet folds into a compact, light-weight carrying package for ease of travel.